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SpaceCube (QB50 FR05)

SpaceCube is a 2U-CubeSat for technolgy development and upper atmosphere science. It is developed and built at Mines ParisTech.

The purpose of this CubeSat include upper atmosphere science for the QB50 project, radio communication experiments, technology demonstrator, education, training and outreach. It will also provide an Amateur FM transponder.

It is a part of the QB50 constellation to gather science data in the upper layers of the troposphere in the altitude range from 350 km down to 200 km. The QB50 project, which will demonstrate the possibility of launching a network of 50 CubeSats built by Universities Teams all over the world as a primary payload on a low-cost launch vehicle to perform first-class science in the largely unexplored lower thermosphere.

It carries the FIPEX (Flux-Φ-Probe Experiment) of TU Dresden as the primary payload for the QB50 project, which is able to distinguish and measure the time-resolved behaviour of atomic and molecular oxygen as a key parameter of the lower thermosphere.

The satellite was launched with the bulk of the QB50 constellation to the ISS in 2017, from where the satellite was deployed on 18 May 2017. The in-orbit lifetime of SpaceCube is about 3 months, from deployment to de-orbit.